Sunday, February 10 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico
I'm fond of saying that there's no difference between creativity and life, that the precepts of one apply equally to the other, that the first rule of both is that there are no rules.
Yet I've discovered that once you commit to the highest possible path and purpose, there's a trinity of principles that's always at play:
1) Trust
2) Let Go
3) Leap
First, you trust the voice of your deepest heart, which is also the voice of your divinity, your god-self, your muse, your highest imperative. Next, you let go of all resistance, clinging and clutching (which doesn't mean you're not afraid). Finally, you leap into the void -- just like the Fool in the tarot.
Legendary sci-fi author Ray Bradbury says about writing that you must leap off cliffs and trust that you'll sprout wings on the way down.
Not only do I do my best to write that way, I do my best to live that way. It's scary, but ultimately satisfying. And even though it means living and writing without a net, those wings Bradbury talks about have never failed to appear.
I think about all that today, nine days after a shipment of Voice of the Muse books and meditation CD sets arrive on my doorstep.
It's six months to the day since a voice interrupted my on-the-road reveries to urge me to refresh, revise and overhaul my modest Voice of the Muse eBook into an expanded and published form. "You want me to do what!?" I exclaimed.
Yet once the initial shock dissipated (The MoonQuest had been out barely a month at that point), I surrendered to the higher imperative.
I trusted, let go and leapt...and watched all the requisite resources begin to fall into place, often miraculously.
Now, not only have my wings sprouted, they're lifting me higher and higher and higher. In just over a week and after a single book-signing, library authors' event and announcement at a meeting of Southwest Writers, sales of The Voice of the Muse have surpassed The MoonQuest's first full month.
Trust. Let Go. Leap. It's a chapter in The Voice of the Muse. It's the only way I know how to live.
In writing as in life, it always works.
Read/hear excerpts from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, and hear a guided meditation for writers from The Voice of the Muse Companion 2-CD set, here.
Order your copy of The Voice of the Muse book and/or CD here.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Trust. Let Go. Leap.
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2 comments:
Busy, busy you have been, are, and I suspect will be. If not one of the rules, this seems maybe more of a guideline, a fair warning if you will. That inner voice, that god-self, that muse has got things for you to do and a certain insistence that you do them. And as near as I can tell, there's little time off for good behavior.
Thanks as always for the reminder that every journey begins with that first step and that Fool's leap is not something we do once, but over and over, the ultimate act of faith in life and in ourselves. It isn't always easy (speaks a clinger), but they have always been interesting and the places I inevitably find myself far better than any place I could have designed myself.
I would like to respond to Mother Wort - and the idea of continuously taking leaps.
I am an Aquarian: we don't think we're leaping because what we dream appears normal to us. And, being a youngest as I am, trying out new things as a matter of course is normal to me. Just ask my family: I'm the biggest "fool" there is!
However, as I've mentioned to my Aries spiritual counselor who can't believe that I don't just do something, time and money are two big deterents. Now, I did reframe that observation by saying that they "help us get focused", but it's still tough. And I don't rule out miracles, but I've spent a lot on things - especially things that were financed for me, speaking of miracles - that just don't pan out because they ultimately don't feel right. It's great and I'm grateful to find out that a particular road isn't for me. But the reason why I see a spiritual counselor is to help ascertain what IS for me - i.e., no use "spinnin' my wheels" anymore. I would also like to say right here that nothing is ever wasted - in this case, experientially.
Just FYI, I have a number of people who tell me to write. But Aquarians are talkers, not writers: we educate, preach, lecture, whatever. I am more comfortable discussing things extemporaneously. (Ha, I labor mightily over a letter to a utilities company! Being spiritual isn't that hard; operating on THIS plane IS!)
Bright blessings,
Suze
P.S. A life partner I once had was present when I was sitting on the edge of the bed one night, lamenting that I don't have the husband/car/kids that all my old friends have. He said "That's true. But when THEY sit on the edge of their beds wondering what might have been if they'd only followed another or more of their dreams, you don't have to - because you've DONE it." Ya gotta love a guy like that.
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